Things We Know About Upcoming Fourth Generation iPhone

Submitted by lalit on June 4, 2010 - 2:58pm.

Apple is going to introduce their fourth generation iPhone at WWDC keynote on June 7th. And leaked prototypes of the upcoming iPhone along with iPhone OS 4.0 announcement by Apple have revealed quite a few details about the handset. Both hardware and software of the iPhone will see some much needed improvements, as well as some new features that might help keep the iPhone ahead in the smartphone race.

On the hardware side: Engadget was the first website to post images of fourth generation iPhone prototype, however, Gizmodo got their hands on the device few days later and dissected it to reveal internal parts. The dissection showed completely new internal design with logic board of the new phone shrunken down to 1/3 the size of iPhone 3GS. It was thinner even though it had bigger battery.

In early May, a Taiwanese blog posted more pics of the prototype showing the Apple A4 processor, front facing camera, LED flash and higher resolution IPS LCD screen. The higher resolution screen was later confirmed by Czech website superiphone.cz, as they put the next gen iPhone screen under microscope revealing the resolution of the screen to be 960 x 640, which would make it the highest pixel density smartphone screen on the market. Digitimes posted complete list of component suppliers for fourth generation iPhone, which showed that the changes seen on the prototypes were definitely coming to the iPhone.

So, fourth generation iPhone will have thinner, boxier design with flat back made of ceramic or glass like plastic. It will have 960 x 640 resolution screen, 5-megapixel camera with flash, front facing camera, Apple A4 processor and longer battery life.

On Software Side: Apple’s iPhone OS 4 preview has already revealed over 100 new features for users, but the five most important ones are Multitasking, Folders, Unified Mail inbox, iBooks and Game Center. Apple has provided developers seven multitasking services, which will allow tasks to be performed in the background while preserving performance and battery life. Multitasking was one of the most requested features and it’s good that Apple is finally adding it to the iPhone.

If like most other iPhone users you have few dozen applications, Folders will help you better organize the applications with drag-and-drop simplicity. Unified inbox was also one of the most requested features and Apple is finally adding it to the Mail application. Apple will bring the iBooks application on the iPhone providing access to iBookStore for tens of thousands of books.

The most interesting development in iPhone OS 4 is Game Center – a Xbox Live like service that will bring ability to invite friends to play game, start a multiplayer game through matchmaking and track achievements and compare high scores on a leader board. The service will be available to iPhone owners by end of this year.

It is rumored that Foxconn and Apple are planning to ship 24 million next generation iPhone units by end of 2010, meaning Apple plans to sell over 10 million iPhones in Q3 and Q4 of this year. It is also rumored that Apple will start selling the iPhone very soon after the announcement at WWDC on June 7th, may be on second or third weekend of this month. We will find out more about fourth generation iPhone at WWDC. We will be doing live coverage of WWDC keynote on June 7th at 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST on live.techztalk.com. Join us then.